Barcelona host Borussia Dortmund at 21:00 CEST in the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Company on Montjuic on Wednesday evening in the first stage of the quarterfinals of the Champions League. It is a collision in which Niko Kovac is going against his former assistant manager Hansi Flick, and the man who replaced him as head coach in Bayern Munich.
Something that Flick noticed that he had thought a lot about the structure of the game, while trying to plot a way to the semi -final. The most important question mark of Barcelona is about the absence of Dani Olmo, and Sport believes that it will be Fermin Lopez who starts behind Robert Lewandowski, with Raphinha returning to starting XI on the left. Otherwise it will be as expected for the Blaugrana, and MD has predicted the same line-up, with the exception of Gavi instead of Olmo.
Olmo is one of the four injury problems for Flick to plan around, including Marc Bernal, Marc Casado and Marc-Andre Ter Stegen, but the fitness problems for Kovac are much worse. Dortmund is without Nico Schlotterbeck, who was excluded on Monday for the season, Marcel Sabitzer and Filippo Mane, as well as Pascal Gross by suspension. The risk of missing the second stage is Yan Couto, Maximilian Beier, Rami Bensebaini and Julian Ryerson when they receive a booking, while only Inigo Martinez in Germany will be absent as a result of a yellow card.
Those absences leave large gaps in the central defense for Dortmund, and Sport believe that Felix Nmecha and Carney Chuwuemeka will anchor the midfield, where Emre can fall back to the defense. On the other hand, MD believes that Kovac could use a back five, with Kan flanked by Waldemar Anton and Bensebaini, with Daniel Svensson on the left flank.
Barcelona is at an unbeaten run of 22 games in 2025 and won their last meeting against Dortmund 3-2, with a late Ferran Torres goal that ended with the unbeaten point of Dortmund of almost three years. The Schwarzgelben are in a mixed form in the competition, but this season performed much better in Europe and were unbeaten as Monaco and Sporting CP in the previous two rounds.